Monthly Archives: September 2010

We watched “The Ghostbusters” the other night, and I was struck by a bit of dialog that kind of jumped out at me, even though I had heard it many times before. The Roman Catholic Cardinal character, commenting upon the ghostly goings-on around town says to the Mayor Character: “Personally, Lenny, I think it’s a sign from God;” to which the embattled Mayor of New York character responds:

“Well, what can I do? I can’t call a press conference and ask everyone to pray about it!”

What struck me was that in spite of the dialog in this mid-80’s movie, that’s precisely what we do now! At the behest of our elected representatives, we are asked to pray for rain, for the dissolution of oil slicks, for protection from hurricanes and floods, for the success and safety of our “brave men and women on the battlefield,” and almost anything else that would detract, in any way, from the myth of American exceptionalism.

A huge percentage of our citizens, perhaps a majority, believe the earth to be less then ten-thousand years old, and that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time. Over half the country rejects the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion that that the climate of the earth is warming, and mankind is the cause. Thanks to psudoscientific babbling by Deepak Chopra and others, supported by trash like “The Secret,” large numbers of otherwise intelligent people believe they can change reality simply by “thinking” about it! Continue reading →

"The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. ...The plain lesson is that study and learning – not just of science, but of anything – are avoidable and even undesirable.”